Young Soviet marriages have a rather poor survival rate. Marriage at 19, divorce at 23–often with a young child left in the breach–is the all-too-common scenario. …

A small quantity of condoms are produced by Soviet factories, but their unpleasant character and doubtful reliability make them little more than a popular topic for off-color jokes. Some Russians claim that birth-control pills can be obtained through the black market, but at outrageous prices and–of course–without a doctor’s supervision.

Low-price abortions are available, but the concomitant red-tape and the reputedly shoddy manner with which the operations are performed lend yet another topic for the well-developed sense of Soviet chorny (black) humor.

Parental pressure is another factor. Soviet males, in particular, claim that after having “walked” (khodili) with their girl friends for a year or so, they are pushed into marriage by the combined forces of the girls and their over-anxious parents.

The Soviet government itself also has a hand in the pro-marriage propaganda campaign. It has replaced the religious service of pre-revolutionary days with an equally elaborate state ceremony which takes place in a “palace of marital union” (dvorets brakosochetanija), complete with flowers, music, speeches by Soviet officials, etc.

Unlike most countries in the world, the Soviet Union would like to increase its birth rate. …

Soviet women work hard at their jobs all day, but even those who spend their work-day resurfacing Nevsky Prospect are expected to cook, clean and play the little wife when they come home. If they are unable to maintain a sweet temperament, and if marital joys have otherwise lost their attraction, the husband will begin to spend more and more evenings out with the “boys,” drinking vodka and exchanging anti-wife anecdotes. …

During my 4-month stay in the U.S.S.R., I encountered a startling number of divorced 25-year-olds, mis-matched couples, nagging young wives and cynical, irresponsible young husbands. The Soviet government, many Russians feel, should recognize the problem and modify its uniformly pro-marriage stance. It should not continue to jeopardize the domestic happiness of its young people in the hope of bolstering a declining birth rate.

(The author is a 1972 Radcliffe graduate who has traveled and studied in the Soviet Union and will file her observations regularly with the Crimson this summer).

]]>https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/12/19/the-soviet-governments-uniformly-pro-marriage-position/feed/7nydwracuAmerica’s cultural offensive throughout the world (1955)https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/12/19/americas-cultural-offensive-throughout-the-world-1955/
https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/12/19/americas-cultural-offensive-throughout-the-world-1955/#commentsMon, 19 Dec 2016 05:09:42 +0000http://nithgrim.wordpress.com/?p=5684I went looking for something in the Congressional Record and found an interesting statement relating to the Cold War. I’ve typed up the first part of it. It’s on pages 8389 and 8390 (1346 and 1347) here.

——

America’s Cultural Offensive Throughout The World
Extension of Remarks of Hon. Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin in the Senate of the United States
Wednesday, June 15, 1955

Mr. WILEY. Mr. President, I send to the desk a brief statement regarding America’s welcome cultural counter-offensive throughout the world.

I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

Statement by Senator Wiley

I have been pleased to comment previously on the Senate floor with regard to the need for a vigorous American cultural counter-offensive throughout the world—for getting across to foreign peoples the true story of American music, art, theater, literature, the ballet, and all the other aspects of American culture.

Our purpose is, of course, to demonstrate the absolute falsity of vicious Soviet propaganda to the effect that ours is a so-called barbarian materialist culture, allegedly interested only in the dollar sign.

Fortunately, we are making excellent progress in disproving Soviet lies and in making up for lost time by accentuating the positive as well.

All over the world, there are radiating American musicians, theatrical troupes and others, showing foreign peoples at first hand the real significance of American cultural pursuits.

Certainly, we can see clearly that there is a magnificent opportunity available to us when word comes in, as it has, from Tokyo, for example, that thousands of enthusiastic schoolchildren stood in line all night to buy student tickets to hear the American symphony of the air. Everywhere this orchestra is scheduled in the Far East, tickets are sold out far in advance.

I am particularly pleased that right now the House of Representatives and, in particular, its Appropriations Committee, has the opportunity to provide on a regular basis funds for this and similar cultural purposes.

I say that it should not be necessary to draw from the President’s emergency funds either to send troupes overseas or to assure United States participation in trade fairs. These should be part and parcel of the regular program of the United Stats Government.

INCREASING INTERESTS IN CULTURAL EFFORTS

From all sides, I note that evidences are pouring in of the increasing momentum of interest in this issue.

Not long ago, I arranged for a luncheon at which representatives of the American National Theater and Academy told many interested Senators and Representatives the story of ANTA’s work in this country and abroad. In particular a 40-theater circuit plan was discussed to vitalize the living theater at the grassroots of our own country.

Recently, Brig. Gen. David Sarnoff made a historic speech for a broad United States political, psychological, and cultural offensive throughout the world.

On the congressional front, Congressman Frank Thompson, of New Jersey, has been tireless in his efforts toward this same objective and has introduced several highly significant bills along this line—particularly with reference to developing the city of Washington, D. C., as a great cultural center.

THREE EVIDENCES OF THIS WORK

I should like to cite now several additional evidences which prove, by the very diversity of their sources, that, at long last, we of the United States are awaking to our responsibilities, to our needs, and to our challenges.

The first is a very splendid page which was carried throughout our country in the Hearst newspapers’ March of Events Section last Sunday, describing the work of the American National Theater and Academy abroad. I want to congratulate the Hearst newspapers for their splendid contribution, as evidenced by these and many other articles and editorials.

The second consists of writeups in last Sunday’s June 12 Milwaukee Journal, by Mr. Robert W. Wells, of the Journal’s New York Bureau, and Mr. Laurence C. Eklund, of the Washington Bureau, on this same cultural theme.

HONOR TO FATHER HARTKE

Thirdly, I point out that, of course, this cultural counteroffensive could never have gotten under way if it had not been for certain outstanding Americans who have with vision, and with industry, given of their able energies to this cause .One such individual who, I am pleased to say, is an ANTA director and attended the ANTA luncheon which I held, was honored yesterday here in our own city of Washington. Father Gilbert V. Hartke had only recently come back from abroad where his troupe had entertained American servicemen. Before his departure, no less a person than the President of the United States personally bade his troupe and him farewell, indicating the deep interest of our President both in the cultural entertainment of Americans and of foreign peoples.

I am delighted that Father Hartke, a great man of the theater, an honored servant of the cloth, a fine human being, was so honored, and so I include the brief text of tribute to him as carried in the testimonial program, and a list of the devoted committee members who prepared the luncheon. Mr. Ralph E. Becker was general chairman of the event, and Mr. Patrick Hayes was master of ceremonies.

——

[From the Hearst newspapers’ March of Events section]

Arts Sell the United States Way—Export of American Culture Wins Friends Around Globe

We’re giving the world a good look at American cultural achievement, to show we’re not the mere materialists our enemies paint us.

And our export of United States culture is returning big dividends in good will and appreciation of the American way of life throughout the free world.

Some samples, like Porgy and Bess and Oklahoma!, are uniquely American—as native as corn-on-the-cob. And on a ore international level, our drama, ballet, music and visual art match or surpass anything yet produced by Russian competition.

It’s part of the United States counteroffensive against Soviet cultural propaganda. And the rave reviews and enthusiastic audience response is awakening Washington to the fact that exporting culture pays off.

Before summer’s end, more Americans will have sung, danced, acted, and otherwise performed abroad than ever before in times of peace.

They’re being financed in part by funds appropriated by Congress last August. Credit is due to the American National Theater and Academy (ANTA) which is spearheading the State Department’s United States drive.

Big Artistic Smash

Currently the big United States artistic smash in Europe is Salute to France, a privately financed ANTA project which is offering Parisians the New York City Ballet plus top stage productions of Oklahoma!, Medea, and the Skin of Our Teeth.

In addition, the program for France includes the touring Philadelphia orchestra, which has already scored a signal triumph, and a visual arts exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art.

ANTA’s international exchange program calls for sending the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to Europe, the Ballet Theatre to Latin America and Martha Graham’s dancers to the Orient.

Now touring the Far East for ANTA is the American Symphony of the Air, the orchestra created by the now retired Arturo Toscanini. It was a sensation in Japan.

United States performers have made a good impression abroad, have outshone closely-guarded Russians by mixing socially.

Success of United States artists as good-will ambassadors has pointed up the recommendation of William Randolph Hearst, Jr., editor-in-chief of the Hearst newspapers, who last February 29, on his return from Russia, urged establishment of a National Planning Board to win the battle of competitive coexistence.

What We Must Do

Noting the stress the Russians were giving to cultural propaganda outside the Iron Curtain, Hearst told the National Press Club in Washington:

“The lively arts are another field wherein the commissars are operating with the professed intention of proving * * * that Russian achievements surpass the West.

“Ballet, theater, literature—all are shaped toward aiding communism’s long-range scheme of world domination * * *. It is not enough for us to advocate large sums for foreign military and economic aid and think we have met the challenge.”

More recently Brig. Gen. David Sarnoff, of the Radio Corporation of America, called for a competitive coexistence strategy board along similar lines.

United States funds now available for sending performing artists abroad are a mere $3,500,000. Startling contrast with Soviet expenditures is shown in figures of the Institute of International Education. In 1950 the Russians spent $150 million for cultural propaganda in France alone, with 2,000 artists touring there. Current Soviet spending is at the rate of $1 1/2 billion a year for all propaganda activities.

United States performers may prove our best envoys in winning friends and influencing people. But this will require much more money than we’ve put up so far.

As one Cairo newspaper commented on Porgy and Bess:

“If this is propaganda, let’s have more of it.”

——

How ANTA Got the Ball Rolling

Uncle Sam’s homegrown artists are carrying Broadway lights around the world on a scale wider than ever before.

Until Congress stepped in with funds to help finance American groups, export of United States art was carried out on a meager scale, financed by the American National Theater and Academy out of its own pocket.

The current “Salute to France” now going over big in Paris is being backed by funds raised by an ANTA committee under Robert W. Dowling and Mrs. H. Alwyn Innes-Brown, president of the Greater New York chapter.

No Government funds were available at the time the project was launched at the suggestion of the French Ministry of Fine Arts last fall.

Chartered in 1935

Salute, although independently financed, is now an integral part of ANTA’s International Exchange under impresario Robert C. Schnitzer, aided by United States Ambassador C. Douglas Dillon. Most of the groups appearing in Paris will now be sent on to other European capitals, financed, if need be, by Washington.

A private nonprofit organization, ANTA has been operating under congressional charter since 1935 for the purpose of widening interest in the theater. After a number of lean years, it now has a membership of 2,000 individuals and theaters in the United States, Hawaii, and the Canal Zone.

For the past 5 years, ANTA has expedited the exchange of performing arts between America and foreign countries. During that time it has sponsored United States participation in the Berlin Festivals of 1951-53, the Paris Festival of 1952, the Denmark-Hamlet Festival of 1949, and the Ballet Theater’s 1950 European tour.

The Sporting Thing To Do

Some of the best salesmen for the United States way of life have been American athletes sent abroad by the Amateur Athletic Union in cooperation with the State Department.

Among them are two great Negro track stars, Mal Whitfield and Harrison Dillard, who got tumultuous receptions in tours of Africa and South America.

Olympic diving champion Maj. Sammy Lee, an Army doctor of Korean parentage, was similarly hailed when he performed in the land of his ancestors.

Still another goodwill athlete is the Reverend Robert Richards, the preacher who won the Olympic pole vault title in 1952.

The athletes won friendship for the United States by being free and easy mixers, lecturing, and coaching native youngsters wherever they went.

Where Music Broke the Ice

A sample of how exporting our culture can assist in cementing relations with our allies was vividly demonstrated in Iceland early this year.

Since the establishment of United States bases on this key outpost of Atlantic defense, Russia and the local Communists have conducted a continuous propaganda offensive, stirring hatred of American troops stationed there.

The Soviets strengthened their campaign with a parade of artists and intellectuals who toured the island to acquaint the population with Russian culture.

United States-Iceland relations were at their lowest when ANTA sent famed violinist Isaac Stern and pianist Ervin Laszlo on concert tours, highlighting the works of American composers.

Iceland’s hearts were thawed, relations have been less frigid since.

United States Minister to Iceland John J. Muccio announced the impact of the recitals upon the Icelandic people was “the greatest of any to date.”

——

[From the Milwaukee Journal of June 12, 1955]

United States Cultural Commandos Abroad

An American cultural counteroffensive—quietly and somewhat timidly launched by the United States State Department in cooperation with private groups—is gathering worldwide momentum.

For too long, many observers feel, the Russians have paraded their ballet troupes, theatrical companies, musicians, and athletes over the face of the world, virtually unchallenged in their claims of superiority to the culture of the “decadent capitalist world”.

Recently the Red Chinese have elbowed into the act, with the successful Paris run of a Peiping theatrical troupe which had never before performed outside China.

The Communists are working hard to perpetuate the myth—widespread among many otherwise sophisticated Europeans and Asians—that the United States is a nation of gadgetmakers, clever in turning out bathtubs in overdecorated automobiles, but barbarians in their indifference to the finer products of the mind and spirit.

Now at last the United States is striking back with what amounts to exploratory raids by a few cultural commandos. The money so far assigned to these operations is petty cash by comparison with outlays for military and economic programs abroad, but it has produced results little short of amazing.

In order to conduct the program through private channels insofar as possible the State Department has been working with the American National Theater and Academy, a nonprofit organization, headquartered in New York. The ANTA acts as agent, selecting the best talent to send abroad, and arranging the overseas bookings through its international exchange program.

To get the facts about the new American cultural export program, Milwaukee Journal bureau men in Washington and New York talked to State Department officials and personnel of the American National Theater and Academy. Their stories appear below.

I do think that the official IPA chart is crowded with symbols which exist not so much for good acoustic or linguistic reasons as to fill the slots implied by its tongue-space framework.

For instance, I’m not sure that languages ever contrast ɨ and ɯ; the unrounded close non-front vowel of languages like Turkish and Vietnamese is sometimes transcribed as ɯ and sometimes as ɨ.

A while ago, I downloaded PHOIBLE‘s database, since they don’t have a search function on the site. Searching the database for inventories from the same source that contain both ɨ and ɯ, I get:

Apatani (RA)

Bora (SAPHON)

Kenyang (PH)

Kilba (GM)

Kod̩agu (RA)

Matses (PH)

Matsés (SAPHON)

Miraña (SAPHON)

Mishmi (RA)

Nimboran (UPSID)

Sedik (PH)

Sema (RA)

Southern Ute (PH)

Tangkul Naga (RA)

Wayana (SAPHON)

This is of course inconclusive, since the databases PHOIBLE draws from are unreliable. The Apatani vowel inventory sourced from RA in PHOIBLE differs wildly from the more usual one given in this paper.

However, this paywalled study claims that Bora really does have this contrast. SIL’s grammar of Kenyang claims that the language contrasts all of /ɨ ɯ u/, which is an even stronger example than Nimboran, the standard example of a language with such a contrast. (Nimboran has a six-vowel system with no rounded vowels, as does Matses.)

]]>https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/08/27/an-unusual-vowel-contrast/feed/1nydwracuThe Dravidian-Australian connection?https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/08/04/the-dravidian-australian-connection/
https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/08/04/the-dravidian-australian-connection/#commentsThu, 04 Aug 2016 06:58:45 +0000http://nithgrim.wordpress.com/?p=5450The indigenous languages of Australia have striking similarities in their phoneme inventories. Most have no fricatives, and none, as far as I know, have sibilants. Australian languages tend to have retroflexes (one exception is Bandjalang, which has only 12 consonants), palatals, contrastive dentals and alveolars, and several laterals and rhotics. Gasser and Bowern (2013) provide a chart of a ‘Standard Average Australian’ phoneme inventory:

Individual languages, of course, diverge from this pattern. Some have a voicing contrast in plosives, although this may really be a gemination contrast: Gasser and Bowern report that 59% of languages with a plosive voicing contrast collapse it initially. (Cf. the Proto-Basque fortis-lenis contrast: in plosives, this has become a voicing contrast, but fortis consonants could not appear word-initially and lenis consonants could not appear word-finally.) Over half have contrastive vowel length.

But there is much less difference across inventories in Australia than in most parts of the world. For example, Guugu Yimidhirr, the source of the English word ‘kangaroo’, differs only in having only one lateral (the apico-alveolar /l/) and a length contrast in its vowels. Dyirbal, the language whose noun class system inspired the title of George Lakoff’s Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, is somewhat more divergent: its only retroflex consonant is the flap /ɽ/, its only lateral is the apico-alveolar /l/, and its only laminal consonant series is palatal.

What happens if we compare Standard Average Australian to Tamil?

The vowel inventory of Tamil differs significantly from that of SAA—Tamil has the mid vowels /e o/, the diphthongs /ai au/, and a length contrast in monophthongs—but the underlying consonant inventory is almost identical. The only significant differences are in the liquids: the rhotics are both retroflex, and Tamil has fewer laterals than SAA.

Looking to modern languages to try to gain information on ancient patterns is of course untenable as serious methodology, but it’s at least suggestive. Here’s Proto-Dravidian.

The velar nasal, present in all Australian languages in Gasser and Bowern’s sample, may not have been phonemic in Proto-Dravidian, but the general similarity is clear. I know of no other non-Australian language family that so closely follows the typical Australian language pattern, so, although I have no suggestion as to the causal relation here, no hypothetical scenario of ancient contact between India and Australia that could have spread this pattern from one place to the other, I suspect that one exists.

Interestingly, a ban on word-initial retroflexes is common among Australian languages, and Proto-Dravidian (like some languages of Western Australia, although I don’t know when this restriction developed) banned all apicals from word-initial position.

There are a lot of people saying this, and none of them bother to back it up.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t be. Radicalizing minorities is one of the most common ways of disrupting a foreign country. The US with the Catholics in Poland, the US with everyone in Yugoslavia, the US with Chechens in Russia, Russia with Abkhazians and Ossetes in Georgia, the US with Uyghurs and Tibetans in China, the US with gays in Russia and its allies, the British Empire and the US with Beng–um, Rohingya in Burma, lord only knows who’s backing all the other ethnic separatists in Burma and how did Casa Pound end up involved with the KNLA?, the USSR with the blacks, Jews, and Finns (yes, really) in the US, the US with the Hmong in Indochina (hence Hmong refugees), the Nazis with ethnic minorities in the USSR, Libya under Gaddafi tried with the Maori in New Zealand but it didn’t work, the US will try with the Koreans in Japan if it ever loses control but it won’t work, Russia with the ~Red Tribe~ in the US…

(as I’ve said before, I bet the reason there are so many Muslims in France is that someone somewhere went ‘gee, France has a pretty big sphere of influence and could conceivably become a significant power [i.e. threat]’ and installed a kill switch while they still could)

(which could explain both the migrant crisis as a whole and the US alliance with Saudi Arabia — Iran, unlike KSA, has a population that could easily reach first-world levels of prosperity, but most Muslims are Sunni and KSA’s entire shtick is using Sunni radicalism as a kill switch, so if you want to tile a country with kill switches…)

(…of course, USG thought it could work with both Khomeini and the Taliban, and look how they turned out)

(and notice that the US isn’t taking in many Muslim refugees, and the ones it does take are either backup politicians and their families [Fethullah Gülen, Ruslan Tsarni, Seddique Mateen] or US proxy forces [Somalis])

(…because mass immigration in the US isn’t about installing a kill switch. kill switches are contingency plans; they aren’t designed to be used immediately)

(…which is one of the reasons why certain elements within these European countries are willing to cooperate with the plans to install kill switches)

…and that’s why nationalism is not and will not within the foreseeable future be “outdated”. It’s not about ‘prejudice’; it’s about national security. If there were no Muslims in the West, the West wouldn’t have to worry about radicalized Muslims.

First, there’s the European Court of Justice, the so-called Supreme Court of the EU. Of the 37 members listed on its site, six studied and/or taught in the United States. That’s 16%, including the president of the court. We count four Harvard degrees and a Harvard visiting scholar. Two Fulbright scholars. Several more studied at Cambridge or Oxford, and I would say nearly half studied outside of their country of origin. President of the Court Koen Lenaerts was a Fulbright scholar, and has an LLB from Harvard, as well as a Master of Public Administration from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government – the gold standard signifier for a true-blue USG man. The ECJ was established in 1952.

Then there’s the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, established in 1951. Of the 16 members of this court, five studied and/or taught in the United States. That’s 31% of the country’s Supreme Court. Do we notice Harvard JFK fingerprints here? Of course! JFK, Harvard Law, Yale, University of Michigan – a number of the usual suspects are implicated.

The Constitutional Court of Austria, in contrast, does not have a single sitting friend or alumnae [sic] of Harvard or Yale. Not one out of 14 members. The president of this court studied in Graz and Salzburg, not even making it to Vienna, the old cosmopolitan imperial capital. We note three instances of foreign influence: New York University, the College d’Europe in Belgium, and the University of Limerick in Ireland. A grand total of 7% who studied or taught in the United States, less than half of the ECJ and less than a quarter of Germany’s supreme court. The one infringement is NYU, not JFK or Yale Law, which might make the one infringement a Trump-tier heresy.

Are there any instances of intervocalic fortition that aren’t devoicing? Kiput glide frication is probably an example, and Berawan (again) has conditioned gemination of intervocalic plosives:

Long Terawan examples such as *batu > bittoh “stone”, *kutu > kuttoh “head louse”, *qatay > atay “liver”, *putiq > puté “white”, *laki > lakkéh “man, male”, *siku > sikkoh “elbow”, *likud > likon “back (anat.)”, *tukud > tukon “prop, support”, *bana > binneh “husband”, *tina > tinneh “mother”, or *tanaq > tana “earth” show an unusual condition for the genesis of geminate consonants: the onset of an open final syllable was geminated. Although the data are more abbreviated, an identical change appears to be reflected in all Berawan dialects. Note that neither the syllable type nor its position are sufficient in themselves to predict gemination, as the consonant onsets of open penultimate syllables, or of closed final syllables remain unaffected. In citation forms stress is generally final in all dialects of Berawan, but this is true whether the final syllable is open or closed. What linguistic factor, if any, might drive consonant onsets to geminate only if they initiate an open final syllable thus remains very puzzling.

Doesn’t Italian have sporadic intervocalic gemination?

]]>https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/07/07/intervocalic-fortition/feed/1nydwracuThese pranks happen all the time. English doesn't allow one-syllable words to end in a lax vowel, so writers on The Simpsons decided to mess with future linguists by introducing the word "meh."kiputIn defense of all-male spaceshttps://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/07/04/in-defense-of-all-male-spaces/
https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/07/04/in-defense-of-all-male-spaces/#commentsMon, 04 Jul 2016 20:05:25 +0000http://nithgrim.wordpress.com/?p=5347Originally posted as a comment here.

The progressive model of normie gender relations is incomplete. On the one hand, it’s true that, under normie gender relations, men lead and women follow; but on the other hand, it’s also true that men are supposed to, for example, open doors for women. Nobody believes that women can’t open doors; so why are men supposed to do it for them? You could say that it’s because of the patriarchy — men want women to be weak and dependent on men — but then you’re saying that 51% of the population have no agency, in order to bolster a theory that can explain these two things, but can’t explain, say, the Scott Aaronson affair.

Let’s make the bold and controversial assumption that women have agency — that is, that they can, to some extent, shape normie gender relations to fit their interests. What sorts of interests do normie women have? Do they want partnerships of equals with soft, prosocial men in touch with their emotions? Do they want that sort of metaphorical homosexuality? Lol, no. That ‘nice guys’ are clueless dorks with entitlement complexes doesn’t mean chicks don’t dig ‘bad boys’.

Here’s a model with more predictive power: normie gender relations consists of a tacit agreement, where men agree to perform attractiveness to the abstract concept of the normie woman (i.e. strength, stoicism, emotionlessness, measured applications of violent anger, etc. — if you prefer, ‘toxic masculinity’) and women agree to perform attractiveness to the abstract concept of the normie man (i.e. weakness and dependence), and each sex enforces, and women especially are encouraged to enforce, normie gender relations by responding to lack of attractiveness with, and genuinely feeling lack of attraction as, disgust. The woman performs being scared by a spider, and the man performs being tough and killing it. If the woman doesn’t perform being scared, the man performs being disgusted; if the man doesn’t perform being tough, the woman performs being disgusted.

If you’re thinking of this as lifestyle D/s performed by people not self-aware enough to realize that’s what they’re doing or what they want, you’re totally wrong: it’s not limited to relationships. It’s the default mode of relation between the sexes — it’s not really even about attractiveness, just about What Is Done. It’s just etiquette. The dynamic even shapes interactions within the family.

Another way to conceptualize it (a better way, if you’re planning a date) is as an exchange of experiences: men provide experiences for women, and get in return the experience, facilitated by the woman, of Being A Man.

This model explains why men are expected to lead, why women are expected to follow, why men are expected to open doors for women, why Scott Aaronson faced so much backlash (he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain, because he performed unattractiveness and unmanliness, admitted to having once felt sad about the thing, etc., so he had to be punished for it, by the unconscious mechanism of women conflating lack of attraction with disgust), why men use disgust to pressure women into not shaving their armpits or whatever, why women respond to that pressure by making a point of performing disgustingness at them, and — why adding women to all-male groups completely changes the dynamic. The implicit threat isn’t an accusation of sexism, although that’s one idiom it can use — it’s that the men suddenly have to hold up the male end of the bargain, both in order to be attractive to the woman (because getting her interested in you confers status) and in order to not face the penalty for breaking it.

In the area of man’s inner life the Lengua distinguish at least four foci: (1) the -valhoc (the hyphen before a Lengua noun indicates that such a stem can never stand without a possessor, generally a possessive pronominal prefix) is translated as the “innermost.” This innermost serves as the mainspring of behavior in a man’s life. (2) The -vanmongcama, which is most frequently translated “soul,” “dream,” or “shadow,” has very little to do with behavior; it is really the core of man’s life or existence. Should it be lost, stolen, or ill, a man will surely die. (3) The -nenyic, translated “chest,” can refer both to the chest anatomy and to its psychic functions. It carries with it the implications of deep involvement of the entire inner make-up of man. (4) The -jangauc, translated as “soul-of-the-dead,” is the disembodied inner existence that is “born” from man’s total inner being at the moment of his death. Most frequently it is treated as the dead person’s counterpart to a living human’s -vanmongcama, but in actual function it seems to include also the functions of the -valhoc and the -nenyic. …

From the linguistic idioms of the Lengua language we can conclude that the -valhoc is definitely the seat of the emotions. …

In some respects the -valhoc compares very favorably with the conscience of our Western inner life, for like the latter it can distinguish between good and evil; but it can also be basically good or evil in character. Thus conversion is very often spoken of as the exchanging of a bad -valhoc for a good one. The idiom occurs in a Lengua folktale about a very bad man, who, through the change of his innermost, became a very kind and good man.

But we must here immediately point out that the Lengua term “innermost” also carries a much more physiological connotation than the metaphorical usage of English “heart.” This contrast can be meaningfully demonstrated in connection with the Lengua expression “changing or exchanging one’s innermost” which, as indicated above, is used to translate the Christian concept of conversion.

Missionary D. Lepp, as a new missionary zealous to eradicate the evils of shamanism and magic, forbade all medicine men to practice their art at his mission station. As soon as he heard their chanting—day or night—he went and ordered them to desist or to vacate the premises. After about three months of consistent interference by the missionary all the chanting had apparently ceased. When shortly thereafter a number of women came to “exchange their innermosts,” he was delighted. His firmness was now paying dividends in conversions. When, however, more and more groups began coming to “change their innermosts,” he began to be suspicious.

“Why did they want to change their innermosts?”

“Because the missionary was telling them that God wanted them to do it.”

“But why do it now and so many together?”

After some hesitation someone finally volunteered: “You see, you told all the medicine men to stop singing—well, some of them are still singing softly. Since they do not seem to be afraid of you or of your God, we are beginning to fear that their medicine and magic may be stronger than we thought. We are becoming very much afraid of them. However, we want to remain your friends, so we have decided to ask you to give us Lenco (Mennonite) innermosts so that we could become immune to the medicine man’s magic.” This request reveals that the Lengua expected far more than only a “psychic” change of heart.

]]>https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/07/02/acquiring-an-immunity-to-magic/feed/2nydwracuWhat does successful assimilation look like?https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/07/01/what-does-successful-assimilation-look-like/
https://nithgrim.wordpress.com/2016/07/01/what-does-successful-assimilation-look-like/#commentsFri, 01 Jul 2016 01:54:02 +0000http://nithgrim.wordpress.com/?p=5275Irish immigrants to America are often held up as models of successful assimilation, so we can use their history to predict the consequences of mass immigration today.

Mass Irish Catholic immigration to America began around 1830. Almost immediately, Irish immigrants established or revitalized political machines like Tammany Hall and gave them the votes that they needed for dominance—and the ethnic gang alliances, which were needed for intimidating voters and stuffing ballot boxes. There were a lot of Irish gangs, but the most notorious was the Winter Hill Gang, which smuggled weapons to the IRA, infiltrated the FBI, and went to war with another Irish gang—in the 1960s and 1970s.

To make the calculations easier, let’s say mass Hispanic immigration to America and mass Muslim immigration to Western Europe began in 2000. Judging by the experience of the Irish, we should expect Hispanic and Muslim gang activity, mass support for corrupt political machines, and perhaps even funding of foreign terrorist groups (which, in the case of the Muslims, are much worse than the IRA) to continue until at least 2150. And this is an unrealistically optimistic estimate: the Irish were more culturally similar to the founding population of America than the Hispanics are, and vastly more so than the Muslims are to the native peoples of Western Europe.